Friday, October 26, 2012

31 days of change :: day 26 {changing homes}

We are in the process of buying a new (old) home... it's barely a half a mile from our current house... right across the train tracks. I was really hoping that we would be closed by now. But not so. We have been in this process for almost 3 months now. We put the original offer on the house back in August. Fun times.But... word on the street is that we just might close in the first week of November.

And that's just when the real fun begins. This awesome brick home is well over 100 years old and needs a lot of TLC. The previous owners have been renting it out and the renters haven't exactly taken great care of things. Not to mention that the house is currently divided into a multi-family house... one apartment upstairs, and one apartment downstairs. We'll be tearing down walls and rearranging the space back into a single-family home. This house has great bones, but man-oh man, do we have our work cut out for us...

When you walk in the main front door you are greeted with the gorgeous original staircase. I love, love, love the banister. Currently to the right side of the stairs is just a giant wall... and on the other side is the downstairs apartment. Item #1 on the renovation list is to knock a big open doorway in that wall.

When you walk in the other front door (the one under the front porch), you are greeted with this...

A hot mess. Hurry, quick... if you are allergic to ugliness, shield your eyes. Because here is a close up of the kitchen...

I warned you. Checkered floors... a yellowed drop-ceiling... horrendous green cabinets... and a lot of trash leftover from the last tenant. But don't worry... we have big plans for this space.

Here is the living room area if you're looking back towards the front door...

Try picturing it with a huge open doorway on the right... open to the entryway and that gorgeous staircase. It's hard, I know... just trust me.

Then if you head upstairs, you are welcomed by apartment #2 and kitchen #2. The plan here is to turn this space into another bedroom... but that is way down the list. The majority of our living space will be downstairs... our living room, kitchen, master bedroom, and laundry room will all be on the first level. The upstairs is actually in fairly decent shape and can stay as-is for a while... at least until we can afford to continue renovations.

Here is one of the upstairs bedrooms... this is the biggest one, by far. There are 2 other "bedrooms" upstairs, but one of them is the size of a large closet, and the other one doesn't have a closet... and will probably become my office. I love this big bedroom though... faux fireplace and all.
So, there you have it. Consider that the first official "tour" of the new house. Praying that we actually close on this house soon so we can begin to make it a home!

----------- For the month of October I'm doing a 31-day series on "change." Go here to see the full line-up of "change" posts.